


lead me back to you

by 0shadow_panther0



Series: the moon follows the earth [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Banter, F/M, Gratuitous comma usage, Kissing, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22193647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0shadow_panther0/pseuds/0shadow_panther0
Summary: In the aftermath of the defense of Derdriu, the King of Almyra and the Queen of Fódlan share a quiet moment.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: the moon follows the earth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615726
Comments: 7
Kudos: 175





	lead me back to you

**Author's Note:**

> me, going absolutely feral as i type this out in one sitting: wh,, what if they,,, what they kissed,,, and got married,,,,,,,
> 
> shout out to nyx on discord, who beta'd and caught the fact that i had neglected to actually type out several important words

“Stay still,” Byleth says, pale light coating her hands. “You have—“

Claude winces as she presses her fingers against his jaw, where blood drips from a small, deep cut that runs from his cheek to his ear. “Ow.”

He’d received the wound during a particularly reckless divebomb of the Imperial forces—not from any weapon, but the shrapnel that had shot through the air after he had, quite literally, blasted a crater into the earth with Failnaught.

Byleth, predictably, had not been terribly impressed.

“You should have gone to Marianne for this,” she scolds, gently. “She’s far better at healing than I am. I might leave a scar.” She runs a thumb over the tender pink skin of the wound, magic fading.

He turns his head, pressing a kiss to the palm of her hand. “I wanted to see you,” he murmurs against her skin. “Is that so much to ask?”

The worried line of her brow softens, and she cups his cheek. “You did see me,” she says, her dry amusement belied by how gently she holds him. “Quite well, I imagine, from your wyvern.”

He huffs a laugh, leaning into her a little more. “I wanted to be close to you,” he amends. “Close enough to—”

He pauses, heat creeping up his neck. His cravat feels a little too tight.

Byleth looks up at him, mouth quirked in a tiny smile. “To do this?” she says, and kisses him.

He responds immediately, hands finding purchase on the curve of her waist, and a distant part of his mind is grateful that they’d forgone the cramped infirmary in favor of her personal quarters.

She’s warm, strong and pliant against him. Their kiss is slow and sweet, and beneath the musk of sweat and dust he can smell the lingering bouquet of Almyran pine.

He can’t bear to pull away, so when they finally part to catch their breath he rests his brow on hers, the heat of her lips fresh against his skin.

“I missed you,” Byleth says, soft enough that he has to strain to hear. “After spending so long with you, being without was like torture.”

“You’re one to talk about about ‘going without,’” he teases. “Disappearing for five years, breaking my young, impressionable heart.”

She peers up at him, expression almost unreadable save for the mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Then I take it you weren’t afflicted by loneliness of any sort, if you’re so used to my absence.”

He laughs. “You think so little of my feelings for you? You wound me, Your Majesty.” He tugs her closer, lets her card her fingers through his hair as he presses another kiss to the crown of her head.

“I might need convincing,” she replies, her free hand settling on the small of his back.

Claude sighs, the tension seeping out of him as he basks in her warmth.

“I thought of you everyday,” he says. “Sometimes I considered giving up, just so I could come back to you quicker.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” he agrees.

“Why not?”

He hides his grin by ducking down to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I wanted the gratification of seeing your surprise when the King of Almyra flew to your door.”

She leans back, fixing him with an unamused stare.

He laughs, and, because she’s there, and because he can, he kisses her again, pulling her flush against him.

“It was very gratifying,” he tells her, smiling against her lips. “Very cute. It was a good expression for you.”

In retaliation, she tugs on his earring until he winces, and when she finally steps away he feels the chill of cold air rushing to fill the space between them more keenly than he has anything else in his life.

“I’ll have someone send up some fresh clothing,” Byleth says, shedding her outer layers. Underneath her ceremonial garb is a familiar black shirt, complete with the cutout over her chest. “For now, let’s try not to dirty the bedding too much.”

On another day, he might have made a pithy witticism on her eagerness to get him in bed with her, but he recognizes that, for all her teasing comments and warm kisses, she’s _tired_. Even while he was beginning his struggle anew in his homeland, she’d been dealing with the unfamiliar terrain of leadership, cleaning up the remnants of the war.

He wordlessly peels off his gloves as he watches her settle onto the mattress, watches the way the dying evening light plays off her lines of lean muscle, then unwinds his cravat, tossing them to the ground. His coat is next, followed by his boots, and then he finally throws himself onto her bed, his sudden weight making her bounce.

She snorts at the display, but rolls to face him anyway, flyaway strands of pale hair catching the light like a domestic halo. He catches her hand in his, fingers intertwining. The ring he gave her— _her_ ring, now—encircles her ring finger, a flash of silver and emerald, drawing his eyes like a flare.

She follows his gaze. “Will you stay this time?”

“With you? Of course.”

She’s quiet for a moment, tracing idle patterns against his hand. “How long?”

He draws her hand to his mouth, pressing his lips against her fingertips. “As long as you’ll have me,” he promises.

She sits up abruptly, fumbling for something in her pocket. “At the Goddess Tower—I meant to, but I never—”

She pushes something—small, warm, metallic—into his palm and he looks down. A ring.

She swallows. “It was… my father’s,” she says, slow and stilted. “He told to give it to the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”

He stares at it for a beat. He thinks his eyes might be comically wide, jaw hanging open. “I—” he starts, but his voice catches in his throat.

“I was waiting,” Byleth continues, rushed, now, like he might try to stop her, “for you to come back, because I didn’t know when—”

She cuts off as he pulls her into a tight embrace, falling back onto the mattress.

“I do,” he says, breathless, ecstatic. “Yes, of course I do, now and forever.”

She returns the embrace just as fiercely, fitting perfectly against him, settling into the crook of his arms like pieces slotting together.

“I love you,” he says, adoring, reverent. “I don’t want to be parted from you again. Everything I’ve done, it was all so I could stand beside you.”

She laughs, soft and warm like the morning sun, and kisses him, and something about it feels like a promise. “I love you,” she says back. “We’ve waited long enough for happiness.”

And if Hilda finds them the next morning, curled up together, deep in slumber and smiling like fools, she knows better than to wake them.


End file.
